cL-sHiNo] ZUNI BAPTISMAL NAMES 335 



and that more than twenty priests were at one time and another resi- 

 dent missionaries of Zufii. Nor, on the other hand, need we be snrprised 

 that when in the early part of the present century these missionaries 

 began to leave the pagan surnames out of their registers giving Spanish 

 names instead — began to suspect, perhaps, the nature of the wall paint- 

 ings, or for some other reason had them whitewashed away — and sought 

 more assiduously than ever, in the deepest hiding places of the many- 

 storied pueblo, to surprise the native priests at their unholy pagan prac- 

 tices, that the records of baptisms in the old books grew fewer and 

 fewer, and that as the secular power withdrew more and more its sup- 

 port of the clergy, the latter could no longer control their disaffected 

 flock, and that finally the old mission had to be abandoned, never again 

 to be reoccupied save on occasions of the parochial visits of priests resi- 

 dent in far-away Mexican towns or in other Indian pueblos. 



Nevertheless, although the old church was thus abandoned and is 

 now utterly neglected, there lingers still with the Indians a singular 

 sentiment for it, and this has been supposed to indicate that they retain 

 some conscious remnant of tlie faith and teachings for which it once 

 stood. 



It is true that the Zunis of today are as eager as were their fore- 

 fathers for baptism and for baptismal names additional to their own. 

 But it must be remembered that baptism — the purification of the head 

 by sprinkling or of the face by washing with medicine-water, was a 

 very old institution with this people even before the Spaniards found 

 them. With them anyone being named anew or assuming a new per- 

 sonality or oiHce is invariably sprinkled or washed "that he be the 

 more cleanly revealed and the better recommended in his new guise 

 and character to the gods and spirits" invoked for the occasion, 

 "and thus be constantly recognized by them as their child, named of 

 themselves, and so be made a special recipient of their favor." This 

 custom is observed, indeed, on many occasions, as on reaching puberty 

 or before any great change in life, or before initiation into the sacred 

 societies, as well as both before and after war, and especially before 

 and after i>erforniance in the sacred dances. The head and face of 

 every participant in these mythic dramas is washed or sprinkled when 

 he is being painted and masked to rejiresent or to assume the presence 

 and personality of the god for whom he is to act or by whom he is to 

 be possessed. 



Thus it may be seen that this custom probablj' had its rise in the 

 simple and necessary act of washing the face for painting before the 

 performance of any ceremony calling for the assumption of a new role, 

 and in the washing away of the paint, when the ordinary condition of 

 life was to be resumed after such performance. Thus, too, it may be 

 seen that baptism as practiced by the early Franciscan missionaries 

 must have seemed not only familiar to the Zuilis, but also eminently 

 proper and desirable on occasion of their accepting the benefits of initia- 



